Find out how to deal with angry clients on the phone.

1. Professional Telephone Skills Course

2. You can learn how to deal with angry
clients by attending a professional
telephone skills training course in
Charlotte, Atlanta and Orlando.

3. One method to handle an angry client on the phone,
which is taught in the course, is called the HEAT method
and it works as follows:
H – Hear them out!
When you are dealing with an irate client on the
telephone, at first, all they wish to do is to get their issue
off their chest. So, you need to sit back and listen without
any interruptions or judgments. If you don’t listen
carefully, you could potentially escalate the issue.

4. Once your client realizes that you are listening and taking
an interest, half the reason for ranting and raving is
removed and the situation becomes more manageable.
The purpose of listening first is to assure the caller of your
willingness to become involved and to let the caller blow
off steam.
Most importantly, listen to the whole of the caller’s
story. If you interrupt them you will make the situation
worse. Take note of any key words and phrases used.

5. E – Empathize
Acknowledge your client’s feelings. A typical mistake
made by many service providers faced with angry or
difficult callers is to tell them that there is nothing to
worry about – “It’s really not a problem” or “I know
how you feel”
The result is usually that the caller has to keep being
difficult until they feel someone has accepted that there
really is a problem.

6. At this stage you need to acknowledge that the caller is
upset and assure them that you are prepared to do
whatever you can to help.
By showing empathy you are giving the very clear
message that you are going to be part of the solution;
not part of the problem.
However, showing empathy does not mean you agree
with the caller when they hit out at your organisation!

7. Listening with empathy requires actively looking for
statements that you can agree with. The objective is to be
able to bring into the conversation positive “I” statements.
These statements show the caller that you are willing to
understand their situation.
“I appreciate you feel this way. Let’s look at how we can
…”
At all times maintain your state of control. You don’t want
to start mirroring your upset client as this would fuel the
situation further.

8. A – Ask Questions
Even though the first step in the HEAT process is to
listen, this may not provide a very clear understanding of
the situation. This being the case, the story presented by
the caller may not be the easiest to follow.
This step is therefore a very necessary one. Careful
questioning helps to clarify the situation and is yet another
way to reassure the caller that you are interested and
concerned.

9. T – Take Responsibility and Thank Them
Take Responsibility
Let them know that you will take responsibility. Assure
them you will take control of this situation to get it
resolved. You do not want to fob them off, so someone
has to deal with it.
Unhappy clients do not like to be passed
around, they want to tell their story once and
know that it is going to be resolved.

10. Thank Them
Always, always, always thank your client. No matter how
difficult the call has been. Be thankful that your client felt
it was worthwhile for them to phone up to air this issue.
It’s too easy for a client to say “forget it, it’s not worth the
hassle!”
We want to make it easy for our client’s to complain
because this is giving us the opportunity to improve our
service.
Thanking them reinforces that they did the right thing by
phoning to let you know the issue.

11. PD Training delivers a two day training course on
“Professional Telephone Skills Training Course” in
Charlotte, Memphis, Orlando, Columbia, Atlanta, Bir
mingham and Flowood.
All students receive post Professional Telephone
Skills Training Course support from the instructor for
12 months, a certificate of completion and small
class sizes are guaranteed to result in a better
training experience for you.